Like December Snow
by Demented Inu
Summary: As the snow melts, so does everything Ron has ever known. HarryRon.


"Ron."

He didn't look back. It was so very obvious, from the way Harry's voice wavered dangerously – close to tears, but too damn proud to let them show, because that was just Harry for you – it was obvious that he was angry and needed and answer. But Ron was through with it, sick of the heart-wrenching arguments, of the way that they closed their eyes and pretended that it was all okay.

It wasn't okay. None of it was. The games, the flutter of eyelashes, the forced and awkward laughter, even the shadows that fell over Harry's eyes nowadays; none of it would ever be okay.

"Ron, look at me."

Reluctantly, he turned. His shoes crunched in the freshly fallen snow, the powder clinging now to the worn laces and the dirty soles. Harry was looking at him from behind fogged lenses, and Ron wanted nothing more than to reach over with a gloved hand and wipe away the fog to see those green eyes clearly – but he couldn't. Not anymore.

"What, Harry?" he asked, forcing himself not to notice the snowflakes in stark contrast to the dark hair. "What do you want me to say to you? I've said what needed to be said, and that's all I can do right now. For the both of us."

Harry was trembling; it was subtle, but any eyes could tell that the gentle tremors weren't from the chill December air. "That's just it," Harry said. "The both of us. It's not a conflict, Ron; it's not something that needs to be 'resolved'. What happened to 'happily ever after'? What happened to—to screwing the world and getting on with what we want?!"

"The problem is you don't know what you want!" Ron shouted into the crisp snowfall. He saw Harry jump slightly. "You beg and you beg and you beg, and the truth of it is that you don't even know! You're living in this—in this little fantasy world of yours where everything is happily ever after and there's no problems after Voldemort… You of all people should know better!"

Harry blinked and opened his mouth but Ron held up a hand and continued, "You of all people should know that just because the overall problem vanishes, the little ones don't magically go away."

"I know what I want, Ron, I… I want you." Harry bit his lip and came forward, but Ron stepped back. "It was never Ginny. I never wanted Ginny. Every time, I closed my eyes and thought it was you. I want you."

"You're married! I'm married! You expect me to just take back everything I told Hermione and run off with you?!" Ron was balking at the idiocy his friend – no, no longer his 'friend' anymore – was spewing. "I came to your stupid party, and now I'm leaving. Tomorrow we'll wake up and go back to the way things used to be, to doing what we *should* do. I'll be happy with Hermione and you with—"

"You can't just go." Harry now fisted his hands into Ron's scarf, pulling, breath fast as fog appeared in front of his mouth. The mouth that Ron had kissed a million times, the mouth that Ron had felt on his most pleasurable areas and that had shouted his name a million times in the heat of the sheets.

"I can. Watch me." Ron pulled back to avoid the temptation to take that mouth again. But Harry was relentless and refused to let him walk away. "You're being ridiculous. Let me go."

"Ron, I'm not ready to let go. I'm not ready to watch you walk away. I have… bent you over the bed too many times to count, have kissed you and lain with you and told you I loved you… and I still do. I still love you. I love the way you make your coffee in the mornings, I love the way you put crunched-up candy canes in your cocoa, I love your laugh and your smile and damn it, I'm not ready to let that go!"

Ron could feel the words hit him like a physical blow. When it came down to it, Ron loved Harry just as much. The look on his face when they were kids when he found his first Weasley sweater, the first kiss they'd shared after the Second Task incident…

"_You came looking for me," Ron whispered, shivering, the blanket tight around him to ward off the breeze that blew off the lake. Harry's only response for a long time was a look of concern and relief._

"_Of course I did, Ron. I couldn't just…" He trailed off and looked away. Ron had the bizarre impulse to embrace him, to reassure that he was grateful and that he was so sorry for everything…_

"_After everything I said…? After how stupid I was?"  
_

"_We're teenagers. It's in the job description to be stupid." Harry took his own blanket off and toweled Ron's hair, bringing the cloth down to catch the spare drop slipping down the freckled face. Ron could feel the hand linger there through the thin material of the blanket, on his cheek, and he could've sworn that he felt his heart somersault in his thin chest. "Besides… I was stupid too."_

_And Harry leaned forward as though it were only natural to do so, like they'd done this a million times before now, and luckily nobody caught them because their mouths met in a brief and hesitant kiss. A kiss that caught all of their innocence and their awkward tension, a kiss that made Ron re-think his feelings for Hermione, if only for a moment._

When it came down to it, Ron pined for Harry from the deepest depths of his soul, not because of the Chosen One, but because of Harry. Because of the goofy smile and the oversized glasses and the hands that now knew his body better than anyone else in his life.

"I…" Ron swallowed around the lump in his throat and begged himself to keep going. To turn away and just go, don't look back, keep walking until you forget this ever happened. "Stop. Just… stop it, Harry, I…"

"No." Harry was close again, just like then, too close for comfort. Their faces mere inches apart, Ron still didn't feel like the taller one in all this even when he looked down into Harry's eyes. Completely the opposite. Ron felt small, terribly small, and insignificant, and ashamed. Of what, he wasn't sure. Probably of himself.

"I'm not ready to let you go, Ron. Not yet." And Harry pulled Ron down slightly until their mouths slanted over one another's, and the snow caught in their hair and melted like tear-tracks from their eyelashes. Ron hesitated only for a moment, but in truth, he could never resist Harry, could never refuse him no matter how angry he was. And he gave into temptation although every cell in his body screamed at the wedding band wrapped firmly around his ring finger.

They broke. Breath heavy, mouths panting, faces flushed with both snowfall and the beginnings of an end. The doubt melted from him and he realized that above all else, he needed Harry Potter, like oxygen.

He also realized that it could never be what they needed it to be.

Ron stepped away and he let go of Harry's hand (he hadn't realized he'd been holding onto it for the longest time, both emotionally and physically) and he walked away into the falling snow.

"Merry Christmas."

And the world he'd known for years and years melted from his bones like the snow beneath his shoes.


End file.
